


Extrait of a lifetime

by larissita



Series: Back and into the rabbit hole [6]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:08:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larissita/pseuds/larissita
Summary: Caspian wakes in the middle of the night, after so many years of being king, worries come too easy and peace seems to elude him. His queen dead, his son disappeared, and the world simply too exhausting. Insomnia drags his mind in the darkness of a winter night as he thinks of time long gone by. He thinks of a dream he's had a thousand times while the scent of peach tea fill the kitchen.
Relationships: Caspian & Ramandu's Daughter | Liliandil, Caspian/Edmund Pevensie
Series: Back and into the rabbit hole [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632655
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	Extrait of a lifetime

**Author's Note:**

> So..... This was mostly done for a while now, I just always have a hard time with the ending. Two days I was tested for Covid-19 and I got my positive result yesterday. I honestly feel like shit but writing and watching Hamilton makes me feel better so that happening... I hope to get the next part of this soon, it should be focused on Susan after the death of her siblings, so that is also happening. I hope you guys enjoy this plenty.

**I had a dream that you were mine**

**I've had that dream a thousand times**

**A thousand times, a thousand times**

**I've had that dream a thousand times**

_ He has never felt so comfortable in his life. You know those moments where you feel rested after a long night of sleep. Those moments where you’re awakened by the sun and know within your core that you don’t need to do anything. Those moments that seem to stretch into infinity, leaving you in a state of floating bliss. There he was in that moment and he wished that moment could last forever. Yet his body pushed his eyes to open. And Oh! He could never regret such a decision. There he was, Edmund, dark hair covering his forehead in messy waves. His face completely relaxed in sleep and his mouth slightly opened. The small bow of his lips forming a sweet circle. As beautiful in sleep as he was when awake and a small thinking frown would set on his face. The sun was shining through the windows, bathing the world around them in light. It was waking up Edmund slowly. The same way it had woken Caspian just a second earlier. _

_ “Cas, you need to learn to stop staring.” Edmund’s sleepy chuckle was pure perfection. _

_ “Never could, never can, never will.” Another chuckle and Caspian takes Edmund’s hand, kissing each finger with pure devotion. “You need to wake up Cas.” _

_ “But, we just woke up…” What was Edmund talking about? _

_ “You need to wake up, you can’t keep doing this to yourself.” Edmund was now looking at him, his eyes full of love but set in a serious expression. _

_ “What-” _

Caspian woke up in his bed alone, sitting quickly enough to feel the pain of the backlash in the back of his neck. His muscles ached as he glanced around the dark room. But by now everything ached and hurt, he could feel the grind of his bones. A sharp contrast with his dream. His bed is cold and empty, there is no sun outside, only the moon casting dark shadows. Caspian takes a moment to calm down, breath in, breath out. Slow. He’s had that dream a thousand times, more than he can count. He gets up, leaves his room.

**I left my room on the west side**

**I walked from noon until the night**

**I changed my crowd, I ditched my tie**

**I watched the sparks fly off the fire**

He walks from his room in the west wing, used to the walk from the room and to the kitchens. The castle had become accustomed to seeing him walk around in the middle of the night like a ghost. Haunting the castle as he, himself, was haunted by the dreams of a long lost love. People were used to the smell of peach tea while the moon was still high in the sky. No one questioned it. No one knew. People assumed the king grew old and slept less, that the weight of governing a kingdom and losing both wife and son had become too much. And it had. In a sense, it only had added lines to his face and weight on his shoulders. He keeps walking in the darkness of the corridors, completely losing track of time. His steps make small ominous sounds in the empty halls, resonating in the silence.

In the middle of the nights he spends awake, Caspian finds himself thinking about his life. Perhaps because the silence of the night leaves little more to do than think. He can see the stars shining in the sky, he thinks of his own wife. His Lilliandil. The beautiful star he had married. She had been a wonderful wife and a perfect mother while she had been alive. And more importantly, she had given him a son. He remembers their first encounter. On an island, too far east, too close to the end of the world. She shined with an out-wordly light, she was a star and looked so breathtaking that he had forgotten everything around him for a moment. Including Edmund. He regrets that even now, close to 45 years later. Caspian had been seventeen back then, Edmund fifteen. Caspian was now 62 years old. He was too old and tired. An old man wondering about his life as he reached the kitchen, putting in the peach tea his love had liked so much. He had no idea what Edmund liked anymore. It had been so long ago.

**I found your house, I didn't even try**

**They'd closed the shutters, they'd pulled the blinds**

**My eyes were red, the streets were bright**

**Those ancient years were black and white**

Lilliandil had been a shining star, captivating in every way. He remembers the second time they met. By then, his heart was freshly broken by Edmund’s departure. And perhaps, with too much strength, he had latched on the next beauty. The first time he had seen her, she had been more star than human. Ethereal in every way. By the second time they met and the following month she had become more and more human, little by little. She had settled as a being between worlds. Not completely human, not completely star. A perfect queen for Narnia. And as such, she had been a perfect queen, and a good mother.

The next time Lilliandil had changed was after their son’s birth. She had started to fade.  _ When a star dies, another is born. _ And Caspian had watched, incapable of doing anything. Knowing too late of a fate too terrible, and yet, incapable of regretting the many times he had prayed to Aslan. Prayed for a son, prayed for Narnia, prayed for peace to last longer. He was incapable of regretting his decision and his prayers even as these took the life of his wife. Not because he was a terrible person, or because he didn’t care. Instead, it was because he cared too much, with age and in years he had become more king of Narnia than husband. Now in his old age he understood Edmund only too well, he understood how and why Edmund had scholed him like a child back then, on a ship too close to the end of the world. On an adventure of a lifetime that would never be repeated again. King Caspian, the Seafarer, and yet he had never taken to the sea again unless it was to go to the Lone Islands, and even then, the pain always reappeared as he was lulled by the sea. He looked at the sea and hoped, only too many times, to see Edmund's shape among the waves.

So, his star had faded away, disappearing completely from the sky. And him, he had grown old. Now avoiding mirrors. He had grown old and weak and cannot imagine Edmund could ever recognize him now.

**The 10th of November, the year's almost over**

**If I had your number, I'd call you tomorrow**

**If my eyes were open, I'd be kicking the doors in**

**But all that I have is this old dream I've always had**

Soft snow and coldness had taken over the world outside while the inside was bathed in the scent of peach tea. Only making grander visions of what Caspian had spent his whole life wanting to be real. But time had passed, Edmund had never come back, life had continued. The hands of the ticking clock had continued their incessant race to the end. His body had grown older and weaker, no longer fit to lead an army. His skin had lost both colour and bounciness, his wrinkles: stories painted by the brush of time. Sand at the bottom of an hourglass, while he knew it could have been barely a moment for Edmund. He spends hours dreaming of Ed’s face, closing his eyes in the vain hope of keeping the fading memories in mind. He can't. By now Edmund's face is softly blurred, his voice is muffled. Time takes its course with little consideration for love. Caspian avoids mirrors, in the vain hope of being once more as young as his love.

He hopes for anything. Even while knowing that none of the Pevensie siblings could ever come back to Narnia, he hoped. He hoped for Eustace Scrubb to come back, the boy who, one upon a time, had nearly deserved what had happened to him. He hoped that one day soon Eustace would find his way back to Narnia. That Eustace would be proof that Aslan was still present, proof that Edmund was safe and sound in their own world. Blind hope that Edmund would be with him.

So Caspian dreamed and hoped as the snow was covering the world outside. He dreams and hopes of what he could never have. Thinking in the middle of the night, like a haunting ghost, imagining just how beautiful Edmund must look in the middle of winter. Snow resting on his hair, turning his cheeks a sweet red.

**But I don't answer questions, I just keep on guessing**

**My eyes are still open, the curtains are closing**

**But all that I have is this old dream I must have had**

**A thousand times, a thousand times**

**I've had that dream a thousand times**

The day his son, Rilian, was born, was the happiest day in his life. To this day Caspian cannot imagine a bigger happiness. They had been too old by then, worried that Narnia would fall into chaos after his and Liliandil's death. The pregnancy had been tinged with desperation, they knew this was their one shot. So when Rilian had been born, Caspian had been ecstatic. Even as his wife slowly started to fade, to lose her star glow until she got sick, until her death. Caspian had only eyes for Rilian. His son, only too perfect and wonderful. He had loved him more than could be described.

For the first time in his life the thought of Edmund had mostly been pushed away in favor of this child. And Rilian loved the stories. And Caspian could only indulge him, remembering Dr. Cornelius' stories about the golden age. Remembering his nursemaid, disappeared too fast as a tree was ripped away. A new story every night. Caspian wonders if perhaps it was his fault that Rilian had disappeared, if he got into trouble because of the stories. And yet Caspian couldn't find it in himself to regret telling Rilian about those stories, about the Golden Age, about the Kings and Queens of old, about Edmund. And if Caspian had talked about Edmund with too much fondness then, Rilian had either been young enough to not know or smart enough to at least not say anything.

A small part of him wonders what it would have been like if Rilian had met Edmund and the others. Would Rilian freeze and gasp as he once had at meeting them in the middle of a dark forest. If, perhaps, Rilian would be fascinated, as he had been after taking care of Edmund's wound back in Aslan's How. All those questions twirled around in his mind as the night grew long and the cup, gently cupped between his hands, grew colder. They moved in his mind, like a hurricane, as the snow parted to give shine to a grey morning. As the cup finally lost all appeal, the scent vanished as Edmund once had. As the people around the castle started to move, bringing with them a life that didn't belong with Caspian anymore.

"Your Majesty."

"Trumpkin."

A blink, Caspian finally escapes his own mind to look at the dwarf who had been with him for so long. Being his regent as he had left his throne for the sea. Perhaps it was time to go to sea again, to search Aslan at the end of the world in the hopes to know who should be king after Caspian's death. No one could find Rilian.

"Trumpkin, how fast could you get the Dawn Treader ready?"

"The ship needs major updates, perhaps you should take one of the modern ships. Is your Majesty thinking about visiting the Lone Islands once more?"

"No, the Dawn Treader, my old friend, how long?"

"A couple of months if we hurry, your Majesty."

All that answers the dwarf is a small nod before the king turns to his cup. Perhaps it was finally time for Caspian to go once more on a voyage to the end of the world, to Aslan’s country. He needed to see the lion and ask him who could be king of queen after his death. Caspian was too old, and his sacrifices had been too great for Narnia to fall into chaos after his corpse turned cold six feet underground.

A couple of months Caspian leaves Cair Paravel, the Seafarer takes to sea once more, missing Eustace and Jill, missing his chance of inquiring about his long lost love. At the same time he misses the rescue of his son.

When he dies and finally reaches Aslan’s country, he sits by a tree. Ready to wait. The weight of his old age finally off his shoulders. He takes a deep breath and like a flame that flickers out too soon, falls asleep, waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Be safe out there with this whole pandemic.


End file.
